I WOULDN’T TAKE LEVAQUIN AGAIN FOR ANYTHING LESS THAN A LIFE-THREATENING CONDITION: FDA to require stronger warnings for potent group of antibiotics. And my side effect was just muscle soreness that lasted for two months.

UGH: Robocall for California GOP Candidate Says Jews ‘Must be Stopped.’ “State party rules resulted in initial automatic endorsement for John Fitzgerald after he qualified for general election; chairman calls on voters to ‘reject anti-Semitism’ and reject the GOP nominee.”

WELL, THIS HARSHES THE NARRATIVE: House Democrat: ‘China declared trade war,’ not Trump.

President Trump isn’t to blame for the outbreak of a trade war with China, a senior House Democrat argued Wednesday.

“We’re now told that this is Trump’s trade war,” Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., said during a Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing. “No, China declared trade war on the United States, 18 years ago.”

Sherman traced the economic clash back to 2000, when lawmakers formalized China’s privileged economic relationship by voting in favor of “permanent normal trade relations” with the Communist power. That legislation codified what previously had been known as “most-favored nation” status in trade with the U.S. And Sherman, who voted against the bill at the time, warned colleagues not to flip-flop on the policy out of hostility to Trump.

“Before Democrats get carried away with the desire to repudiate our position, remember that 65 percent of Democrats voted ‘no’ on MFN [most favored nation status] for China,” he said. “We should not abandon that position just because some Republicans and the White House have embraced it.”

I dunno, that seems to be the way things are done nowadays.

OH: Sen. Feinstein failed to disclose husband’s Facebook stock before Zuckerberg testified.

THE 21ST CENTURY IS NOT TURNING OUT AS I’D HOPED: Emerging sex disease MG ‘could become next superbug.’

BALTIMORE POLICE STOPPED NOTICING CRIME AFTER FREDDIE GRAY’S DEATH. A WAVE OF KILLINGS FOLLOWED:

Just before a wave of violence turned Baltimore into the nation’s deadliest big city, a curious thing happened to its police force: officers suddenly seemed to stop noticing crime.

Police officers reported seeing fewer drug dealers on street corners. They encountered fewer people who had open arrest warrants.

Police questioned fewer people on the street. They stopped fewer cars.

In the space of just a few days in spring 2015 – as Baltimore faced a wave of rioting after Freddie Gray, a black man, died from injuries he suffered in the back of a police van – officers in nearly every part of the city appeared to turn a blind eye to everyday violations. They still answered calls for help. But the number of potential violations they reported seeing themselves dropped by nearly half. It has largely stayed that way ever since.

Unexpectedly.

Incidentally, Baltimore’s last Republican mayor left office before the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper.

BLUE ON BLUE: New Democrat Superstar Has Already Given Her Party Reason To Beware.

Democrats finally received an infusion of fresh blood when the young and telegenic Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shocked the nation with her monumental upset win on June 26, in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th congressional district.

But there was a catch: she won by defeating ten-term incumbent Rep. Joseph Crowley, the number four Democrat in the House.

Ocasio-Cortez, a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, has already backed another leftist insurgent targeting a member of the party establishment.

She has endorsed congressional candidate Cori Bush, running against nine-term Democrat Rep. Lacy Clay in Missouri’s August 7 primary. Both Ocasio-Cortez and Bush are backed by the progressive PAC Justice Democrats.

Now, Democrats may be showing a whiff of panic.

Eventually, the Left eats its own. Always. And while the schadenfreude remains as tasty as ever, the Democrats’ grassroots embrace of socialism — “democratic” or otherwise — is not a healthy sign.

THE PJM LIVE BLOG is live-blogging Peter Stzok’s House testimony.

HARDER, BETTER, FASTER, STRONGER, PLEASE: Acting EPA Chief Promises to Continue Regulation-Slashing Mission.

WAIT, I THOUGHT GERRYMANDERING WAS UNDEMOCRATIC OR RACIST OR SOMETHING: Obama Uses Gerrymandering To Push Voters To Unseat Republicans In 2018.

STANDING UP FOR CIVIL RIGHTS: CU Boulder students join effort to fight Boulder’s new assault weapon ban.

Some pro-Second Amendment college students have joined efforts to fight a new ban on assault weapons in Boulder, Colo.

It’s a city known as a haven for left-wing causes, but right-of-center students who call the region home say the ban is unconstitutional and want it reversed, including a 20-year-old CU Boulder student.

A lead plaintiff to overturn the law, which takes effect in January, is 20-year-old Tyler Faye, a member of the CU Boulder Shooting Sports club. He joined the lawsuit because the city’s new ordinance raises the age for legal firearm ownership from 18 to 21, the Daily Camera reports.

Fight the power.

SPACE TO DESTROY: Baltimore police stopped noticing crime after Freddie Gray’s death. A wave of killings followed. Unexpectedly!

On Facebook, Walter Olson comments: “One additional factor that deserved a mention: the federal consent decree by which the city yielded up policy control to Washington over some areas of policing.”

CHANGE? Antifa Activists Are Freaking Out About a Proposed ‘Unmasking’ Law.

“H.R. 6054 takes a pro-fascist stance in its very name, and doubtlessly in its enforcement,” Carmichael Monaco, a member of the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council, a New York City-based activist group, told me Tuesday. “In the current political climate, antifascists who speak out against fascism, racism, xenophobia, etc. are routinely harassed, threatened, and attacked by the far right, often supported by the police, who are notably exempted here. Families and friends of antifascists also become targets of far right violence. The wearing of a mask is an act of self-defense often necessary to ensure one’s right to free speech.”
…
The new and worrying trend here for people like Monaco is the strategy of repurposing a tactic meant to fight racists for the arrest of people on the opposite side of the ideological spectrum. This isn’t just speculation: In August 2017, an Arizona lawmaker said he wanted to use unmasking laws to go after Antifa protestors by explicitly comparing them to the KKK.

What was good enough for the Democrats’ old shock troops in the KKK must be good enough for their new shock troops in Antifa.

STANDING UP FOR RACISM: Universities across the country, including several Ivy League schools, have pledged to continue using race as a factor in hiring and admissions after the Trump administration rescinded guidance supporting affirmative action.

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HMM: Trump: NATO Partners “Agreed To Substantially Up Their Commitment.”

LIZ SHELD’S MORNING BRIEF: Strzok Grilled on the Hill Today and Much, Much More. “Peter Strzok, partisan activist and coup participant, will be testifying today in an open hearing before the House Judiciary and the House Oversight committees. Lisa Page, the other half of the treasonous former couple, ignored her subpoena to appear before the Committees yesterday. She has 48 hours to comply or else…something bad will happen?”

PROMINENT DEMOCRAT KEITH ELLISON: Hey, I’m just spitballing here but when we get back in power we could always impeach conservative justices. “Ellison’s office did not immediately return a request for comment. . . . Some liberal activists and journalists are already pushing for Democrats to expand the number of Supreme Court seats — and then promptly fill them with progressive jurists — once they’re back in control of Congress and the White House.”

PROMINENT DEMOCRAT STORMY DANIELS ARRESTED FOR LEWD CONTACT.

More here: “Franklin County Municipal Court documents show Daniels was arrested by Columbus police and is scheduled for arraignment Friday morning. She’s charged with charged with three counts of ‘Illegally Operating Sexually Oriented Business – Employee Knowingly Touch Any Patron.’ Avenatti tweeted that Daniels will plead not guilty. . . . The report says that when the officers approached the stage, Daniels held the face of the female officer between her breasts. It also says she did the same to a male officer. The report adds that Daniels fondled the buttocks and breasts of another officer.”

Well, she’s a prominent Democrat, so . . .

SWEDEN PREPARES FOR RUSSIAN AGGRESSION: Yes, Sweden.

UPDATE: Link fixed. The June 2018 Home Guard drill is telling.

FALSE PREMISE. NEXT QUESTION? MSNBC’s Katy Tur: Is It ‘Appropriate’ to Take Originalist View of Constitution Since Americans Are More Progressive Now?

AS JAMES TARANTO HAS OBSERVED, IT OFTEN SEEMS AS IF THE #NEVERTRUMP MOVEMENT IS PRIMARILY ABOUT AESTHETICS:

FLARE SHOWER OVER UTAH: F-15E Strike Eagles fire flares over the Utah Test and Training Range, July 3, 2018.

CHANGE: Under New Management: Trump’s ‘fresh eyes’ sparks massive federal reform.

President Trump is taking charge of his administration’s effort to reform the federal government and workforce, the biggest demonstration yet that Washington is under new management.

Aides describe the president as personally invested in the 32-point plan to shake the bureaucracy out of a 1950s model based on secretarial pools.

“So much of the ability to drive change requires a fresh perspective,” said Margaret Weichert, an author of the recently announced reform blueprint and deputy director for management at the Office of Management and Budget. . . .

Trimming and reeducating the workforce, combining federal agencies and eliminating overlapping services won’t be easy and Trump’s team are bracing for a bruising fight with bureaucrats, federal employee unions and lawmakers.

But it is one that Trump is approaching like he did many of his business challenges, setting the overall goals and then promoting them.

“He gets involved in the high level conceptual framing of it and then when we pull together the proposals,” said Weichert.

One business practice used in drawing up the reform plan was keeping the proposals broad and welcoming outside ideas, she said.

“Very often good ideas literally die in committee because if you have a single proposal the people who are invested in the status quo start picking at it, and picking at it and picking at it and then what’s left isn’t even worth pursuing,” Weichert explained.

Another tactic is selling it, and that means describing how poorly the current federal structure works. She and OMB Director Mick Mulvaney, for example, are armed with silly stories of how Washington works, such as how chickens are regulated by the Agriculture Department, but eggs by the Food and Drug Administration, or how salmon are regulated differently if they are in the ocean or river.

“We are serious about top down change. It cannot all happen at once, it can’t certainly happen by fiat, but when you look at where we are at in 2018 two decades into the 21st century and you pair that with a bureaucratic infrastructure that was very well aligned to the needs of the post-World War II era, it’s so clear there’s a mismatch,” said Weichert, adding, “If now isn’t the time to get traction on this, I don’t know when is. We have to get serious about making change happen.”

Legislation has already been introduced to begin making Trump’s reforms, headlined by a plan to revamp the federal workforce, reform IT and add automation, and combine the Education and Labor departments so that schools can focus more on filling the nation’s skills gap like some European school systems do.

There are a lot of areas where Trump could campaign on making America “more like Europe” and confuse the Dems.